It’s dead silent in the school. The cat’s collar is the only sound, which for some reason disturbs me more than the rustles I heard behind the phantom cutout earlier. My aunt had offered to come with me to get my pajamas, but I turned her down. Now I’m regretting that.
I was trying not to be a complete coward. Aunt Charlotte said she’ll arrange everything—my transfer back to my school in the States, limo ride to the airport and a ticket for the first available flight tomorrow, and a made-up excuse for Mom. I hate to run away like this. I don’t want to leave my friends with all of them thinking I’m a jerk. I don’t want to leave them period.
I’ve actually come to like this place: the rehearsals, the kooky teachers, the weekend trips to Paris. Even my time in the garden.
The chapel flits through my thoughts. A knot swells in my esophagus—a burning sob I refuse to release. I grip my throat as dread creeps across my mind, taking the shape of that heartbroken water-goblin princess, Rusalka, from Antonín Dvořák’s fairy tale opera, as she sings her final song to the moon, a sacrifice she’s willing to make for a chance at happy ever after.
Not me.
I finally know the truth . . . all of my family history, everything about the violin . . . and I don’t want to relinquish my gift. It is mine. I did earn it. I realize that now. I earned it because Dad gave up his life to give it to me, unintentionally or not. I lost the person I loved most in this world. If that’s not earning everything that came of that sacrifice, nothing is.
Dad wanted me to have this talent, this voice. It made him happy. And it’s an integral part of me. Enough that I’ll fight for it till my final breath.
I’m not weak. I know who I am now and why this happened, at last. I’m stronger than when I first got here. Like Etalon said, I’m a psychic vampire with the power to “consume, transmit, and manipulate life-forces.”
But so are he and Erik . . . and they’ve had a lot more practice at it.
That sob I’m fighting breaks loose.
I squint in Diable’s direction. He’s found my bag in a splay of moonlight, next to the hall leading to the theater. I didn’t drop it over there, yet it’s open, and everything has spilled out.
Eyes and ears alerted, I crouch to toss things back in. I pick up the last two items: a pack of gum and a wooden knitting needle. Everything’s accounted for, all but my cell phone and the toe socks—balled up, wrapped in tissue paper, and tied with ribbon. I glance around to find Diable batting the socks down the corridor. With a groan, I drag my tote onto my shoulder and follow with the knitting needle still in hand.
The cat leads me to the theater door and I freeze in place, surprised to see it open. Jippetto usually locks it up at night after he’s done working on the sets. All the lights are off, and the pitch-dark depths stretch wide. Diable gives the ball a final cuff, and it rolls inside, the tissue paper crinkling.
My fingers grip the knitting needle tighter. I consider turning around. I don’t care about the stupid socks anymore. Even though a tiny part of me still wants to give them to Etalon, to see if there’s any good left in him: if that little child who wanted to buy his mother all the candied fruit in the world just to see her smile, and the young boy who saved me in my dreams every night, survived in spite of the Phantom’s influence. That’s what terrifies me most of all, that I still want to have faith in him, even knowing his part in this vile plan.
A few feet inside the door, a rectangular glow catches my eye. It’s my phone, with the flashlight app activated. My pulse skips . . .
This is an obvious setup. I should go get my aunt.
Just as I take a step back, Diable’s shadow saunters across the phone, Franco’s scaly tail flopping in his mouth.
Bouchard.
That witch. I’m so done letting her bully me. Snarling, I step inside, the knitting needle poised like a miniature spear in my hand. “Seriously, Françoise. I’m really tired of your—”
The door sweeps shut and the phone blinks off, leaving me cloaked in heavy darkness. Diable’s jingles trail off in the distance, close to the stage, but I sense a living presence nearby. Weapon raised, I swing around blindly. Someone grabs me from behind with a hand clamped over my mouth, pulling me back against a rock-hard body. I know him by the current that sparks between us. The succubus inside wants to betray me, melting into his muscles where they twitch along my spine.
I should’ve never let him seduce me on the rooftop. It’s a battle to resist his touch now. The energy that pulses between us in even a graze of our skin gives me the same jolt of rejuvenation that I got from kissing Ben and Jax.
A sweet, solvent odor radiates from Etalon’s clothes—medicinal. Doctor. That thought revives my fighting spirit. I struggle as his free hand captures my fingers where I clench my knitting needle.
“I heard everything between you and your aunt.” His hoarse whisper ruffles my hair as he holds me tight.
Of course he was listening at the vent. Here I thought he was busy. Should’ve known that’s just incubus code for eavesdropping.
“If you promise not to scream,” he continues, “I’ll let you go.” His grip over my lips loosens slightly.
I bare my teeth to bite him, but that imprint on my wrist flares, leaving me unable to. “What did you do to me?” I growl under his fingers and wrestle his hold on my hand, wishing I could stab him with the knitting needle.
“I did what I had to, to protect you,” he growls back. He pries at my fingers in an attempt to steal my sad excuse for a weapon. I make a fist around it, resisting. The moment my knuckles start cramping from the force of his digging fingernails, his own ribbon imprint brightens under his sleeve. He curses and drops my hand as if he’s been stung, leaving me armed and moderately dangerous.
“See that?” he asks, head lowered so his shaved chin cradles my temple. “I’m no more able to harm you than you are me.” He rakes his arm along his thigh to push up his sleeve and showcase his blistering-hot tattoo. Even in the dark, it looks worse than mine felt when I tried to rat him out to Aunt Charlotte. “This is why I rushed our unity ritual tonight. I don’t want him to be able to force me to hurt you . . . not with hypnotism, not with threats, not with guilt. I’ve made it physically impossible for you to go under my knife. So . . . I ask again. Will you promise not to scream?”
Numb, I nod and relax my body in his embrace. His hand falls from my mouth. He turns me around.
I can’t make out his face, but his eyes glimmer like embers—flecks of coppery light softened with shadows of brown. “I know you’re afraid, but if you leave now, you’ll endanger everyone here. He’ll burn RoseBlood to the ground with all of the students and teachers locked inside if he fails in his mission. There’s only one way we can stop him: by working together.” Diable’s bells bounce around the theater, as if he’s scoping things out. Etalon shifts nervously.
“Are you afraid he’s watching us?” I whisper, nerves alerted and prickled.
“He was in his coffin when I checked on him minutes ago.”
“Coffin?” I squeak, sounding more wobbly than I’d like.
“He sleeps there. Listen, I want to take you somewhere where we can talk safely. Somewhere I know he won’t follow. Will you let me?”
With my friends and teachers in the line of fire, there’s only one right answer. I drop my arm to my side, releasing the knitting needle so it clatters to the floor. Then I take his hand in mine.
While Etalon helped me gather my things and drop them in my tote, he told me he’d filtered an inhalation anesthetic through my aunt’s vent to put her to sleep so she wouldn’t miss me tonight. That’s why his hands and clothes smelled medicinal. He assured me it wouldn’t hurt her, and since he was honest about the injections he gave my friends at the club, I chose to trust him.
Next, he led me through the secret passage in the orchestra pit where he’d hidden Dad’s violin, and sailed us across an underground river. In any other circumstance it might’ve been hauntingly romantic. But
it was too similar to the canals leading to the secluded lair I’d always heard about in the stories: the Phantom’s house of horrors.
Even worse, I was surrounded by water—the stagnant and threatening scent of it, the currents like laughing, taunting tongues, inky depths made even more endless by the blackness of the cave surrounding us.
Sensing my panic, Etalon awoke the firefly larvae along the roof of the cave to give us some light. We banked on an underground dock and took another secret tunnel on foot up into the forest. A quick moonlight jog along a path through some trees, well-worn by Jippetto’s wheelbarrow wheels—with only the sighting of a fox and an owl, each speaking their own natural languages—and now we’ve arrived.
From the outside, the caretaker’s cottage is smaller than I expected. It borders the bank of the river in back, and looks more like a shed, shadowing another shed. A soft light greets us from the sole window on the top half of the front door. Etalon, having held my hand the entire way here, leads me inside without even knocking.
The cottage’s one room serves as both a kitchen and sleeping quarters. It’s tidy. There are two sconces on the wall aglow from bulbs giving off a soft yellow light. A small antechamber with a sink and toilet is off to the side, where plaid curtains pull across for privacy. Framed watercolor paintings deck the walls around the bed, each one a likeness of a different French shop with displays featuring Jippetto’s mannequins. The artwork is signed by him.
“He painted all these?” I ask.
Etalon nods. “There’s more to him than most people think.”
The caretaker must be expecting us, because there’s a kettle of tea steaming on a potholder at the table. Its smoky, caramelized scent fills the room with warmth. Then I realize the hospitality is probably for the mannequins stationed in chairs around empty teacups.
Apparently, the guys’ rumors at school were right about a lot of things.
I shiver in contrast to the cozy surroundings.
Standing over me, Etalon places his cloak around my shoulders so I can absorb his body heat. He cups my face with both hands, soothing my nerves with that ability he has, then skims his fingertips along my braid before moving away, leaving me tantalized in his wake. “Jippetto won’t be joining us until we’re finished up here. He’s waiting in the aviary, on the lower level.”
“Lower level?” I survey the area again, seeing nothing that indicates stairs or a basement. “How can there be room for a bird run in such a small space with a river out back?”
“You’ll see soon. But first . . . tea?” He places the violin case on the floor between the mannequins’ chairs, wraps a potholder around the kettle, and pours a cup.
I thank him and grip the handle as he cautions me not to get burned. “Why are we here?” With a sip of hot, caramel-flavored caffeine sinking into my throat, I finally have the courage to ask.
“To make a plan,” Etalon says between blowing on his tea. “The Phantom avoids coming here, just as he avoids strolls through the forest.” He sets his cup aside. I watch how he moves, flowing grace and sensuality in spite of his height and build, and wonder if it comes naturally to him, or if it’s part of being an incubus. Aunt Charlotte is graceful, too. I always thought it was the dancer in her, but maybe it’s inherent.
Etalon leans over one of the male mannequins and surprises me by unbuttoning its shirt. There’s a black heart in the center of its polished torso, carved of ebony and embedded into the white pine of the chest.
“Recognize the wood?” Etalon asks as he backs toward the chair holding the female to make room for me.
With my free hand, I touch the male’s sleek heart, shimmery like an ink spill. “It’s like the Stradivarius.”
Etalon buttons the shirt back, as if to respect the mannequin’s privacy. “Until two days ago, I didn’t know it was my violin that your father played for you. And now I see he formed a bridge with his love so Christine’s song could find its way into your body. I always thought you were simply born with the voice. Erik made it sound like he’d had the violin since he stole it from the gypsies. Like it had never been out of his hands.”
I study him, confused.
He frowns. “Remember the artisan witch your aunt mentioned? The one who sold Saint-Germain the enchanted Strad?”
I nod.
“Jippetto is the last of that clan. They were known in otherworldly circles for working with a special wood that could trap the essence of a spirit. But the black heartwood they used was rare, and grew only in one place. Deforestation decimated their supply along with their craft. Erik’s violin was the last instrument they made. Jippetto preserved his family with what little wood he had left. Within these three mannequins are his mother, Adella, and his two twin brothers, Kendric and Kestrel, who died of pneumonia.”
I glance from each painted face to the next, seeing new depth to their eyes. I almost expect them to move. Suppressing a shiver, I rest my hands beside a gray cloth napkin, the teacup cradled between them. Steam rises up like a spectral omen. “Poor Jippetto. But what does this have to do with—”
“I came here right after I heard you talking to your aunt,” Etalon interrupts. “I asked Jippetto to be honest . . . to tell me all he knew about Erik’s history with the Strad. Just like what your aunt said—Erik thought he could let the violin go.” Etalon motions me to the empty chair. The one reserved for the caretaker. I sit with my hands on my knees, my body tense. “For three decades, he tried to find a replacement, but nothing could match the purity and resonance of the original instrument. In the 1950s he launched the search for the craftsman, in hopes he could have another made. When it led him to Adella, who was on her deathbed, he learned the truth about the enchanted wood’s capabilities. He explained how he’d played for Christine as she died. How she’d sang for him. Adella told him that Christine’s voice was trapped within, and that she could be revived one day via the instrument. That when her soul was reincarnated, it could be reunited with her voice. He knew then that the violin was irreplaceable.”
I rub my sweater where it covers the scar on my knee. “So why didn’t he steal it back from us? I would’ve thought he’d move heaven and earth . . .”
Etalon props his hands on the table. “Even someone as brilliant and unrelenting as Erik can’t outthink destiny. Adella cautioned him that since a duet of love had trapped the voice, it would take the same purity of emotion to release it. So he was powerless, for he couldn’t predict who would have Christine’s soul, much less make himself love them. The only thing he could do was keep tabs on your family and violin from afar, and wait for any sign of her rebirth. When he heard about me as a child, about my angelic singing, he assumed I was her, reborn. He was partly right. Since you and I are twin flames, I’m one part of her soul, and you’re the other. But that never occurred to him as a possibility. He almost turned his back when he saw I was a boy and that I could no longer sing at all—” Etalon’s tremulous voice cracks.
My chest aches on the memory of his nightmare experiences in the human-trafficking world. I cup my palm over his hand. “I’m so sorry for what those bastards stole from you.”
His fingers fist beneath mine. “Yet we were going to do the same to you.”
“Were . . .” I whisper, to comfort him and assure myself.
His fingers relax. “How could we be so blind? Had we followed through . . . we would’ve deserved the same end as my jailors.”
The confession triggers a profound realization. “That’s how Erik found you. That’s how you became his son. He saved you from them, didn’t he?”
“Yes. He killed them all and absorbed their cumulative life years. Then he brought me here. Took me in. Cared for me. I owe him . . . everything.” He slumps his broad shoulders. The suspenders draw his shirt tight so the knit conforms to every muscle. “He has another side to him. One that wants nothing more than to be a good father. And he is a good father.”
My heart breaks to hear him try to convince me. Or is he convincin
g himself?
“I had my awakening when I was fourteen. Erik knew it was time, he sensed it, and led me to a whorehouse so I could feed off a woman’s energy. She was older . . . in her twenties. I crept into her bed and her dreams, and had my fill of both. After I recovered from the energy surge, I couldn’t stop remembering that another creature had done that to my own mother, spawning me, leaving her to face it all alone. The guilt became too great, and I told Erik I would never feed again. Not like that. That I’d rather starve and die. He came up with the idea for the rave club to save me, once again. A heartless beast wouldn’t do something so accommodating for a child who wasn’t even his by blood, would he?”
I want to agree with him. But Erik’s sinister plan glues my lips shut. I squeeze Etalon’s hand, hoping to transmit the same calming support his touch offers me. Our ribbon imprints flare, synchronized. His deep-brown gaze finds mine, tortured and seeking. The pull between us intensifies, but he breaks our hands apart and moves to the sink to dump out what’s left in his cup.
I stand, prepared to give him my cup, too.
His back stays turned. “Erik has a conscience about things, you see. He can’t bring himself to visit Jippetto, because he feels guilty. He can’t walk through the forest for fear of encountering the animals we’ve altered. That makes him reachable, on some level.”
I grip the handle on my teacup, forcing myself to ask a question I’m not sure I want answered. “Why does he feel guilty about the groundskeeper?”
Etalon sighs, running a hand through the dark curls on his head, leaving them disheveled. “Jippetto was twenty when his mother died, with his magic used up and nowhere to go. Being a mute, his options were limited. Erik used his underground connections and arranged for him to make mannequins for shops. He also put him up in a house in the city—a kindness in return for the information Adella had shared. When Jippetto retired four years ago, Erik invited him here, to live out the rest of his days in peace. But he had an ulterior motive, for by then Erik was formulating a plan to reunite Christine’s voice with a new body.” Etalon’s profile tenses. “Jippetto was my first, and only, human experiment to prepare my skills for the transfer. The bird whistle around his neck is hollow. It makes no sound. And the handkerchiefs he wears, they cover the scars.”